I have always held DS9 in high regard despite never having watched all or even much of it.
And I've long held that Sisko was the 2nd best captain after Kirk (insert screaming of TNG fans here!) - and you see that in the Pilot episode when he takes it up to Picard over the battle of Wolf 359.
So, sad to say the first season of DS9 is almost completely awful. Call out for most excrutiating episode - potentially of all television anytime - is episode 10, "Move along home".
The first episode I enjoyed was S01e15 which had Brian Keith as the guest star. However the series starts to turn around with the last two episodes 19-20 being quite good.
Louise Fletcher (Oscar award winner from One flew over the Cuckoo's nest) makes her debut in this final episode of season 1 as (one of) the series' primary villains and oh boy, she is excellent.
I'd watch the pilot, then pick up from e19.
